Winged monsters have been seen in the skies, and a pestilence follows in their wake, threatening the very survival of mankind. Only the crew of the Blood Hunter knows where they come from, and only one man has the power to send them back—Thorne, a human/dragon hybrid in possession of mental powers beyond comprehension.
Candace Decker doesn’t need anyone to look after her—she’s a badass werewolf more than capable of protecting herself and those she loves. All the same, she’s always been drawn to Thorne’s strength. In an uncertain world, he’s the one man who makes her feel safe. And what Candy wants, she usually gets.
But while Candy is tenacious, Thorne’s willpower has been honed over ten thousand years. He might want her, but the last thing he needs is an infatuation with a young, impetuous werewolf. Candy makes him lose control, and that could have disastrous consequences.
As the threat escalates and they become separated by time and space, Candy must find a way back to him, because while Thorne alone has the power to defeat the dragons, only together can they finally bring peace to the universe.

My Review:

I liked this series a whole lot better before they started playing with the “timey-wimey” bits.

Which is not to say that I didn’t like Flying through Fire, because I did. But it just wasn’t nearly as much sheer fun as the expanded edition of Break Out and Deadly Pursuit, the first two books in the series.

But it’s still fun.

Part of what makes this series so interesting is the way that it explores and plays havoc with paranormal romance. Rico Sanchez, the hero of Break Out and the prime mover of much of the action in the entire series, is a vampire. And not a new vampire, either. Rico died his first death in Spain during the Inquisition, in the 15th century on old Earth. It’s now somewhere in the 3000s, and Rico is still very much alive. When the Terrans fled the dying earth centuries ago, they brought all the things that went bump in the night along for the ride, albeit unwittingly.

The werewolves are still around too, Jonathan Decker, the hero of Deadly Pursuit, is a werewolf. And so is his daughter Candace, the heroine of Flying through Fire. But vampires and werewolves aren’t the only apex predators around. And that’s where the fun comes in. Thorne, the immortal hero of this story, is well on his way to becoming a dragon. And he’s not sure what to do about it.

Especially since Candy Decker set her sights on Thorne long ago, probably even before she knew what it was she wanted from him. But Thorne is afraid to let himself feel anything at all. He’s sure that if he lets loose of his control, all the power that he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t have is going to come out and bite him in the ass.

He’s sure he’s not right for Candy. She’s only 24, and he’s on his 10th millennia. That’s one hell of an age gap.

Thorne keeps saying that he’s going to leave Candy and the crew of the Blood Hunter behind him, and settle down somewhere far away, safe and boring.

Until the rest of the dragons come back to the galaxy, and start wiping out whole worlds to get back the one person who can either save them, or destroy them. It’s up to Thorne and the crew of the Blood Hunter to make sure that humanity, at least some form of it, survives.

Sometimes, love really can conquer all. Even when that all is a gigantic beast that can fly between the stars.

Escape Rating B: There are two stories in Flying through Fire. One is obviously the come-here/go-away romance between Thorne and Candy. It’s not really the age gap keeping them apart, it’s that they are both being idiots in completely different ways. (And their mutual idiocy is sometimes a bit predictable, and drives the reader, or at least this reader, a bit crazy) Candy has a lot of problems with impulse control, and boatload of abandonment issues, and at least some of her love for Thorne has a sizable amount of hero worship in it. In Candy’s strange life, with her parents time traveling and saving the universe, there have been too many points where Thorne was the only stable presence in her life, even when she resisted his protection.

Thorne has been alone for far too long. Through a bad accident of time travel, literally millennia. There have always been other people around, but Thorne has always been the one in charge, with no one to share the burden. He’s emotionally closed off, because that was the only way to survive.

Candy wants to bring him out of his self-imposed shell. Which someone really, really needs to do. He needs her lightness as much as she needs his steadiness. Immortality is boring. But it takes another bit of accidental time travel for them to finally be in the right place at the right time together.

The other part of this story is the culmination of the political situation set up in the previous books. Over the course of the series, the secular human governmental structures have all collapsed, leaving the extremely fanatical Church of Everlasting Life in seemingly everlasting ascendance. Until the dragons come back and wipe the slate clean on their way to wiping out humanity. Once all the threats are dealt with, someone will have to stick around and pick up the pieces.

The story in Flying through Fire brings this saga full circle. At the beginning of Break Out, it was just Rico and the crew of the Blood Hunter roaming the galaxy looking for trouble. When Flying through Fire ends, we’re back to Rico and the crew of the Blood Hunter, albeit with a few staffing changes, roaming the galaxy and looking for trouble. I hope they find it, because this series has been a marvelous and wild rocket ride.